heretics, those who will hereafter be owned by the Lord Jesus Christ; you might find in this very city-yea, even among Protestants-those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ is "wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification." He is guiding them to that glory, of which he has already given them a lively hope. His word has formed all their religious opinions, and his precepts govern all their habits. When indolent, faith animates them to activity; when troubled, faith lulls them to repose. To Him they look for strength in temptation, and for supplies in need. He consoles them under losses; he will guide them through the valley of the shadow of death. His people are their people; his promises are their inheritance; and his love is their supreme and everlasting happiness. Would they part, then, with that invaluable doctrine of the Atonement, which forms at once their virtue, their peace, and their security? No; not all that is mysterious in nature, or subtle in infidelity, or seducing in sin, or oppressive in sorrow, shall detach them from its consolations: yea, when the shadows of death gather thickly around them, on this, on this alone, will they fix their dying thoughts. Remembered virtues may then seem all defiled; remembered sins, black with such aggravations as must weigh the soul unsustained below the grave: but the atonement of Christ, even in those moments, which may well appal even the bravest, can impart to the most timid a hope full of immortality: the dying sufferer retreats from the agonies of nature to the consolations of grace; and passes from time, like Stephen, peacefully contented, if not, like Elijah, triumphantly victorious. Would they part with that doctrine? No; (I speak the deliberate and reasonable sentiment of every pious Protestant) they would rather shrivel into idiocy, nay, melt into nothingness, and drag down with them into the abyss of annihilation all the rational beings who walk earth's peopled cities, or meditate in her seclusions, or navigate her waters, or work upon her plains, than see that single truth of Christ's atonement-the only ocean which can extinguish for sinners. the flames of hell, the only sun which can for them illuminate eternity-disproved.

With respect to some, I indulge the hope that you will from this time believe our profession to be no hypocrisy, as you see our principles to be not incongruous. You will admit, that, whatever else can be alleged against Protestants, this charge, at least, in all its parts, is feeble; -that our doctrine neither allows the reasonableness of infidelity, nor sets up Reason above Revelation, nor is inconsistent with our own principles, nor violates the unity of truth. Yet is this charge repeated: in private and public it is the theme of conversation: it is thundered forth in orations; it is spread round the land by the press; it is prominent in tracts for the public eye; it finds a place even in the most elaborate writings of Catholic apologists. Those who know least of Protestantism, hazard the charge without proof; and those who know Protestantism, will maintain it against proof. But the charge, as you have seen, is altogether groundless: what, then, must you think of their motives who urge it so pertinaciously? Were it true, I should not blame them for advancing it: but since it is false; since every sensible man must see it to be. false; since it denounces those who love the Gospel in sincerity, as making alliance with its enemies, and tolerating its subversion; since without knowledge, or against it, they term this holy doctrine absurd, inconsistent, anti-Christian, and infidel, what must I think of those who employ it? I hope I am wrong, but I can hardly help concluding, that there is little sincerity when such weapons are employed. More than most other symptoms, this seems to me to indicate a falling cause and a corrupt church. It has been upheld through ages of ignorance; but, now that the Bible threatens it every where, on every point its tenets, its practice, its relaxed morality, and its bold usurpations-nothing but unhesitating misrepresentation can shut out from the minds of its disciples the dreaded truth. But the dreaded truth, where there is otherwise free access to it, cannot long be thus shut out; and if it be once discovered, all the previous misrepresentation will only serve more forcibly to detach you from that church, ancient and extended as it is, which needed such support. Even now, perhaps, its

antiquity and extent would not defend it from your suspicions, were it not armed with the additional plea, that it is sorrowful and sinking. In other countries, its hierarchy still exclaims, "I sit as a queen, and shall see no sorrow," though dismemberment and desolation, external shocks and internal languor, have made themselves felt even to the Roman throne. But here she is in her weeds; a bereaved and despondent widow. "Is it meet that her children forsake her now? If conscience arrest not the deserter, let honour still bind him to the standard round which his fathers rallied, and which never needed able defenders more than now." Conscience and honour! Abuse not these sacred names. Shall they be enlisted to uphold a religious lie? If there be no truth in religion, then let each man be true to his party; let religious integrity be given up; and let such a fidelity as holds robbers together in crime, usurp its place. But if religion be true-Brethren, my conclusion will not wait for due approaches and nice reasonings. If Protestantism be not of God, by all legitimate weapons oppose it: let your priests preach against it; let your people pray against it: priests and people live it down by superior integrity, overwhelm it by the irresistible eloquence of apostolic devotedness to God. But if it be of God, as it is, call it not honour to oppose it. Call it not honour, to stand out against conviction, to maintain fatal superstitions, to dishonour Christ, to bring up your children to probable destruction, to expose your dependants to probable ruin, to convert friendship and family ties into the means of hoodwinking those whom you might enlighten. No: you owe to all connected with you, no less than to God and to yourselves, a prompt departure from a corrupted church. It may wound their feelings, only perhaps to save their souls: it may destroy your present unity, only to bind you to them in a Christian friendship for ever. At all events, whether the Church of Rome be true or false, it is an insult to God's Majesty to profess adherence to it as a point of honour: ás if a creed were some immemorial heir-loom, some antique tapestry, the more venerated because the colours have faded and the subject is

unintelligible. No; "he that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not, shall be damned.". Religion is too awful to be trifled with; and though ancestral honours, and remembered family sacrifices, and 'the urgency of some friends, and the flattery, perhaps, of others, tempt you to an unexamining adherence to it, prefer, to all the honour which is of men, that which cometh of God only. And if the Papal system be, as I solemnly believe, that denounced in the Apocalypse as the " mother of abominations,”* accursed of Almighty God, come out of her: come out of her, my countrymen, "that you be not partakers in her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues."t

* Rev. xvii. 5.

t. Rev. xviii. 4.

NOTE. (See p. 175.)

To Catholics, the arguments which I have endeavoured to answer in this Sermon are too familiar; but for those Protestants who may happen to read this Sermon, I have subjoined some extracts from Catholic writings and speeches, to show the effects which they usually attribute to our doctrine of the Right of Private Judgment.

BOSSUET.

"Encore qu'il semble que les novateurs aient voulu retenir les esprits en les renfermant dans les limites de l'Ecriture sainte, comme ce n'a été qu'à condition que chaque fidèle en deviendroit l'interprète, et croiroit que le Saint Esprit lui en dicte l'explication, il n'y a point de particulier qui ne se voie authorisé par cette doctrine à adorer ses inventions, à consacrer ses erreurs, à appeler Dieu tout ce qu'il pense."-Oraison funebre de la Reine d'Angleterre.

And so the right of private judgment, according to Bossuet, leads men to "adore their inventions, consecrate their errors, and call their own fancies God."

DE LA MENNAIS.

-une

"La Réforme, après avoir épuisé tous les autres moyens de défense, fut contrainte, par sa nature même, de se réfugier dans le système des points fondamentaux doctrine, non seulement absurde en soi, mais de plus incompatible avec leurs maximes; une doctrine, enfin, qui ne peut être vraie à moins que le Christianisme ne soit faux, et qui aboutit inévitablement à la tolérance de l'Atheisme."-Essai sur l'Indifference. Paris, 1821.

"Un système qui consacre la liberté de tout croire, même les erreurs les plus exécrables; et la liberté de tout nier, même Dieu."

"Ce système et le Christianis. me tel que l'enseignoient les Apôtres, ne sauroient subsister ensemble.'

R

The Reformation, after having exhausted all its means of defence, was constrained, by its very nature, to take refuge in the system of fundamentals-a doctrine not only absurd in itself, but likewise incompatible with their maxims; which cannot be true unless Christianity be false, and which necessarily issues in the toleration of Atheism.-Essay on Indifference, vol. I. p. 205.

A system which consecrates the liberty to believe every thing, including even the most execrable errors, and to deny every thing, including even God.-Ib. p. 191.

That system and Christianity as taught by the Apostles, cannot subsist together.-İb. p. 209.